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\documentclass[defaultstyle,11pt]{thesis}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\title{Designing Optimal Low-Thrust Interplanetary Trajectories Utilizing Monotonic Basin Hopping}
\author{Richard C.}{Johnstone}
\otherdegrees{B.S., Unviersity of Kentucky, Mechanical Engineering, 2016 \\
B.S., University of Kentucky, Physics, 2016}
\degree{Master of Science}{M.S., Aerospace Engineering}
\dept{Department of}{Aerospace Engineering}
\advisor{Prof.}{Natasha Bosanac}
\reader{Kathryn Davis}
\readerThree{Daniel Scheeres}
\abstract{ \OnePageChapter
There are a variety of approaches to finding and optimizing low-thrust trajectories in
interplanetary space. This thesis analyzes one such approach, Sims-Flanagan transcriptions, and
its applications in a multiple-shooting non-linear solver for the purpose of finding valid
low-thrust trajectory arcs between planets given poor initial conditions. These valid arcs are
then fed into a Monotonic Basin Hopping (MBH) algorithm, which combines these arcs in order to
find and optimize interplanetary trajectories, given a set of flyby planets. This allows for a
fairly rapid searching of a very large solution space of low-thrust profiles via a medium
fidelity inner-loop solver and a well-suited optimization routine. The trajectories found by
this method can then be optimized further by feeding the solutions back, once again, into the
non-linear solver, this time allowing the solver to perform optimization.
}
\dedication[Dedication]{
Dedicated to some people.
}
\acknowledgements{ \OnePageChapter
This will be an acknowledgement.
}
\LoFisShort
\emptyLoT
\begin{document}
\input macros.tex
\chapter{Introduction}
Continuous low-thrust arcs utilizing technologies such as Ion propulsion, Hall thrusters, and
others can be a powerful tool in the design of interplanetary space missions. They tend to be
particularly suited to missions which require very high total change in velocity or $\Delta V$
values and take place over a particularly long duration. Traditional impulsive thrusting
techniques can achieve these changes in velocity, but they typically have a far lower specific
impulse and, as such, are much less efficient and use more fuel, costing the mission valuable
financial resources that could instead be used for science. Because of their inherently high
specific impulse (and thus efficiency), low-thrust fuels are well-suited to interplanetary
missions.
For instance, low thrust ion propulsion was used on the Bepi-Colombo, Dawn, and Deep
Space 1 missions. In general, anytime an interplanetary trajectory is posed, it is advisable to
first explore the possibility of low-thrust technologies. In an interplanetary mission, the
primary downside to low-thrust orbits (that they require significant time to achieve large
$\Delta V$ changes) is made irrelevant by the fact that interplanetary trajectories take such a
long time as a matter of course.
Another technique often leveraged by interplanetary trajectory designers is the gravity assist.
Gravity assists cleverly utilize the inertia of a large planetary body to ''slingshot`` a
spacecraft, modifying the direction of its velocity with respect to the central body, the Sun.
This technique lends itself very well to impulsive trajectories. The gravity assist maneuver
itself can be modeled very effectively by an impulsive maneuver with certain constraints, placed
right at the moment of closest approach to the (flyby) target body. Because of this,
optimization with impulsive trajectories and gravity assists are common.
% TODO: Might need to remove the HOCP stuff
However, there is no physical reason why low-thrust trajectories can't also incorporate gravity
assists. The optimization problem becomes much more complicated. The separate problems of
optimizing flyby parameters (planet, flyby date, etc.) and optimizing the low-thrust control
arcs don't combine very easily. In this paper, a technique is explored by setting the
dual-problem up as a Hybrid Optimal Control Problem (HOCP).
This thesis will explore these concepts in a number of different sections. Section
\ref{traj_opt} will explore the basic principles of trajectory optimization in a manner agnostic
to the differences between continuous low-thrust and impulsive high-thrust techniques. Section
\ref{low_thrust} will then delve into the different aspects to consider when optimizing a low
thrust mission profile over an impulsive one. Section \ref{interplanetary} provides more detail
on the interplanetary considerations, including force models and gravity assists. Section
\ref{algorithm} will cover the implementation details of the HOCP optimization algorithm
developed for this paper. Finally, section \ref{results} will explore the results of some
hypothetical missions to Saturn.
\chapter{Trajectory Optimization} \label{traj_opt}
Trajectory optimization is concerned with a narrow problem (namely, optimizing a spaceflight
trajectory to an end state) with a wide range of possible techniques, approaches, and even
solutions. In this section, the foundations for direct optimization of these sorts of problems
will be explored by first introducing the Two-Body Problem, then an algorithm for directly
solving for states in that system, then exploring approaches to Non-Linear Problem (NLP) solving
in general and how they apply to spaceflight trajectories.
\section{The Two-Body Problem}
The motion of a spacecraft in space is governed by a large number of forces. When planning and
designing a spacecraft trajectory, we often want to use the most complete (and often complex)
model of these forces that is available. However, in the process of designing these
trajectories, we often have to compute the path of the spacecraft many hundreds, thousands, or
even millions of times. Utilizing very high-fidelity force models that account for aerodynamic
pressures, solar radiation pressures, multi-body effects, and many others may be infeasible
for the method being used if the computations take too long.
Therefore, a common approach (and the one utilized in this implementation) is to first look
simply at the single largest force governing the spacecraft in motion, the gravitational force
due to the primary body around which it is orbiting. This can provide an excellent
low-to-medium fidelity model that can be extremely useful in categorizing the optimization
space as quickly as possible. In many cases, including the algorithm used in this paper, it is
unlikely that local cost-function minima would be missed due to the lack of fidelity of the
Two Body Problem.
In order to explore the Two Body Problem, we must first examine the full set of assumptions
associated with the force model. Firstly, we are only concerned with the nominative two
bodies: the spacecraft and the planetary body around which it is orbiting. Secondly, both of
these bodies are modeled as simple point masses. This removes the need to account for
non-uniform densities and asymmetry. The third assumption is that the mass of the spacecraft
($m_2$) is much much smaller than the mass of the planetary body ($m_1$) and enough so as to be
considered negligible. The only force acting on this system is then the force of gravity that
the primary body enacts upon the secondary. Lastly, we'll assume a fixed inertial frame. This
isn't necessary for the formulation of a solution, but will simplify the derivation.
Reducing the system to two point masses with a single gravitational force acting between them
(and only in one direction) we can model the force on the secondary body as:
\begin{equation}
\ddot{\vec{r}} = - \frac{G \left( m_1 + m_2 \right)}{r^2} \frac{\vec{r}}{\left| r \right|}
\end{equation}
Where $\vec{r}$ is the position of the spacecraft, $G$ is the universal gravitational
parameter, $m_1$ is the mass of the planetary body, and $m_2$ is the mass of the spacecraft.
Due to our assumption that the mass of the spacecraft is significantly smaller than the mass
of the primary body ($m_1 >> m_2$) we can reduce that formulation to simply:
\begin{equation}
\ddot{\vec{r}} = - \frac{\mu}{r^2} \hat{r}
\end{equation}
Where $\mu = G m_1$ is the specific gravitational parameter for our primary body of interest.
\subsection{Kepler's Laws and Equations}
% TODO: Can I segue better from 2BP to Keplerian geometry?
Now that we've fully qualified the forces acting within the Two Body Problem, we can concern
ourselves with more practical applications of this as a force model. It should be noted,
firstly, that the spacecraft's position and velocity (given an initial position and velocity
and of course the $\mu$ value of the primary body) is actually analytically solvable for all
future points in time. This can be easily observed by noting that there are three
one-dimensional equations (one for each component of the three-dimensional position) and
three unknowns (the three components of the second derivative of the position).
In the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler produced just such a solution. By taking advantages of
what is also known as ``Kepler's Laws'' which are:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Each planet's orbit is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the foci. This can be
expanded to any orbit by re-wording as ``all orbital paths follow a conic section
(circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola) with a primary body at one of the foci''.
\item The area swept out by the imaginary line connecting the primary and secondary
bodies increases linearly with respect to time. This implies that the magnitude of the
orbital speed is not constant.
\item The square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of the semi-major
axis of the orbit, regardless of eccentricity. Specifically, the relationship is: $T = 2
\pi \sqrt{\frac{a^3}{\mu}}$ where $T$ is the period and $a$ is the semi-major axis.
\end{enumerate}
\section{Analytical Solutions to Kepler's Equations}
Kepler was able to produce an equation to represent the angular displacement of an orbiting
body around a primary body as a function of time, which we'll derive now for the elliptical
case. Since the total area of an ellipse is the product of $\pi$, the semi-major axis, and
the semi-minor axis ($\pi a b$), we can relate (by Kepler's second law) the area swept out
by an orbit as a function of time:
\begin{equation}\label{swept}
\frac{\Delta t}{T} = \frac{k}{\pi a b}
\end{equation}
This leaves just one unknown variable $k$, which we can determine through use of the
geometric auxiliary circle, which is a circle with radius equal to the ellipse's semi-major
axis and center directly between the two foci, as in Figure~\ref{aux_circ}.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{fig/kepler}
\caption{Geometric Representation of Auxiliary Circle}\label{aux_circ}
\end{figure}
In order to find the area swept by the spacecraft, $k$, we can take advantage of the fact
that that area is the triangle $k_1$ subtracted from the elliptical segment $PCB$:
\begin{equation}\label{areas_eq}
k = area(seg_{PCB}) - area(k_1)
\end{equation}
Where the area of the triangle $k_1$ can be found easily using geometric formulae:
\begin{align}
area(k_1) &= \frac{1}{2} \left( ae - a \cos E \right) \left( \frac{b}{a} a \sin E \right) \\
&= \frac{ab}{2} \left(e \sin E - \cos E \sin E \right)
\end{align}
Now we can find the area for the elliptical segment $PCB$ by first finding the circular
segment $POB'$, subtracting the triangle $OB'C$, then applying the fact that an ellipse is
merely a vertical scaling of a circle by the amount $\frac{b}{a}$.
\begin{align}
area(PCB) &= \frac{b}{a} \left( \frac{a^2 E}{2} - \frac{1}{2} \left( a \cos E \right)
\left( a \sin E \right) \right) \\
&= \frac{abE}{2} - \frac{ab}{2} \left( \cos E \sin E \right) \\
&= \frac{ab}{2} \left( E - \cos E \sin E \right)
\end{align}
By substituting the two areas back into Equation~\ref{areas_eq} we can get the $k$ area
swept out by the spacecraft:
\begin{equation}
k = \frac{ab}{2} \left( E - e \sin E \right)
\end{equation}
Which we can then substitute back into the equation for the swept area as a function of
time (Equation~\ref{swept}):
\begin{equation}
\frac{\Delta t}{T} = \frac{E - e \sin E}{2 \pi}
\end{equation}
Which is, effectively, Kepler's equation. It is commonly known by a different form:
\begin{align}
M &= E - e \sin E \\
&= \sqrt{\frac{\mu}{a^3}} \Delta t
\end{align}
Where we've defined the mean anomaly as $M$ and used the fact that $T =
\sqrt{\frac{a^3}{\mu}}$. This provides us a useful relationship between Eccentric Anomaly
($E$) which can be related to spacecraft position, and time, but we still need a useful
algorithm for solving this equation.
\subsection{LaGuerre-Conway Algorithm}\label{laguerre}
For this application, I used an algorithm known as the LaGuerre-Conway algorithm, which was
presented in 1986 as a faster algorithm for directly solving Kepler's equation and has been
in use in many applications since. This algorithm is known for its convergence robustness
and also its speed of convergence when compared to higher order Newton methods.
This thesis will omit a step-through of the algorithm itself, but the code will be present
in the Appendix.
\section{Non-Linear Problem Optimization}
Now we can consider the formulation of the problem in a more useful way. For instance, given a
desired final state in position and velocity we can relatively easily determine the initial
state necessary to end up at that desired state over a pre-defined period of time by solving
Kepler's equation. In fact, this is often how impulsive trajectories are calculated since,
other than the impulsive thrusting event itself, the trajectory is entirely natural.
However, often in trajectory design we want to consider a number of other inputs. For
instance, a low thrust profile, a planetary flyby, the effects of rotating a solar panel on
solar radiation pressure, etc. Once these inputs have been accepted as part of the model, the
system is generally no longer analytically solvable, or, if it is, is too complex to calculate
directly.
Therefore an approach is needed, in trajectory optimization and many other fields, to optimize
highly non-linear, unpredictable systems such as this. The field that developed to approach
this problem is known as Non-Linear Problem (NLP) Optimization.
There are, however, two categories of approaches to solving an NLP. The first category,
indirect methods, involve declaring a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for declaring
the problem optimal. These conditions then allow the non-linear problem (generally) to be
reformulated as a two point boundary value problem. Solving this boundary value problem can
provide a control law for the optimal path. Indirect approaches for spacecraft trajectory
optimization have given us the Primer Vector Theory.
The other category is the direct methods. In a direct optimization problem, the cost function
itself is calculated to provide the optimal solution. The problem is usually thought of as a
collection of dynamics and controls. Then these controls can be modified to minimize the cost
function. A number of tools have been developed to optimize NLPs via this direct method in the
general case. For this particular problem, direct approaches were used as the low-thrust
system dynamics adds too much complexity to quickly optimize indirectly and the individual
optimization routines needed to proceed as quickly as possible.
\subsection{Non-Linear Solvers}
For these types of non-linear, constrained problems, a number of tools have been developed
that act as frameworks for applying a large number of different algorithms. This allows for
simple testing of many different algorithms to find what works best for the nuances of the
problem in question.
One of the most common of these NLP optimizers is SNOPT, which is a proprietary package
written primarily using a number of Fortran libraries by the Systems Optimization Laboratory
at Stanford University. It uses a sparse sequential quadratic programming approach.
Another common NLP optimization packages (and the one used in this implementation) is the
Interior Point Optimizer or IPOPT. It can be used in much the same way as SNOPT and uses an
Interior Point Linesearch Filter Method and was developed as an open-source project by the
organization COIN-OR under the Eclipse Public License.
Both of these methods utilize similar approaches to solve general constrained non-linear
problems iteratively. Both of them can make heavy use of derivative Jacobians and Hessians
to improve the convergence speed and both have been ported for use in a number of
programming languages, including in Julia, which was used for this project.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, as there are a number of other optimization
libraries that utilize a massive number of different algorithms. For the most part, the
libraries that port these are quite modular in the sense that multiple algorithms can be
tested without changing much source code.
\subsection{Linesearch Method}
As mentioned above, this project utilized IPOPT which leveraged an Interior Point Linesearch
method. A linesearch algorithm is one which attempts to find the optimum of a non-linear
problem by first taking an initial guess $x_k$. The algorithm then determines a step
direction (in this case through the use of automatic differentiation to calculate the
derivatives of the non-linear problem) and a step length. The linesearch algorithm then
continues to step the initial guess, now labeled $x_{k+1}$ after the addition of the
``step'' vector and iterates this process until predefined termination conditions are met.
In this case, the IPOPT algorithm was used, not as an optimizer, but as a solver. For
reasons that will be explained in the algorithm description in Section~\ref{algorithm} it
was sufficient merely that the non-linear constraints were met, therefore optimization (in
the particular step in which IPOPT was used) was unnecessary.
\chapter{Low-Thrust Considerations} \label{low_thrust}
Thus far, the techniques that have been discussed can be equally useful for both impulsive and
continuous thrust mission profiles. In this section, we'll discuss the intricacies of continuous
low-thrust trajectories in particular. There are many methods for optimizing such profiles and
we'll briefly discuss the difference between a direct and indirect optimization of a low-thrust
trajectory as well as introduce the concept of a control law and the notation used in this
thesis for modelling low-thrust trajectories more simply.
\section{Low-Thrust Control Laws}
In determining a low-thrust arc, a number of variables must be accounted for and, ideally,
optimized.
Firstly, we must determine the presence or absence of thrust. Often, this is a question of
preference in the arsenal of the mission designer. Generally speaking, there are points along
an orbit at which thrusting in order to achieve the final orbit are more or less efficient.
For instance, in a classic orbit raising, if increasing the semi-major axis is the only goal,
then thrusting nearer to the periapsis is far more efficient than thrusting near the apoapsis.
For this reason, a mission designer may choose to reduce the thrust or turn it off altogether
during certain segments of the trajectory.
Secondly, the direction of thrust must also be determined. The methods for determining this
direction varies greatly depending on the particular control law chosen for that mission.
Generally speaking, a control law determines these two parameters: thrust presence and thrust
direction, at each point along the arc.
This is, of course, also true for impulsive trajectories. However, since the thrust presence
for those trajectories are generally taken to be impulse functions, the control laws can
afford to be much less complicated for a given mission goal, by simply thrusting only at the
moment on the orbit when the transition will be most efficient. For a low-thrust mission,
however, the control law must be continuous rather than discrete and therefore the control law
inherently gains a lot of complexity.
\section{Sims-Flanagan Transcription}
The major problem with optimizing low thrust paths is that the control law must necessarily be
continuous. Also, since indirect optimization approaches are quite difficult, the problem must
necessarily be reformulated as a discrete one in order to apply a direct approach. Therefore,
this thesis chose to use a model well suited for discretizing low-thrust paths: the
Sims-Flanagan transcription (SFT).
The SFT is actually quite a simple method for discretizing low-thrust arcs. First the
continuous arc is subdivided into a number ($N$) of individual consistent timesteps of length
$\frac{tof}{N}$. The control thrust is then applied at the center of each of these time steps.
Using the SFT, it is relatively straightforward to propagate a state (in the context of the
Two-Body Problem) that utilizes a continuous low-thrust control, without the need for
computationally expensive numeric integration algorithms, by simply solving Kepler's equation
(using the LaGuerre-Conway algorithm introduced in Section~\ref{laguerre}) $N$ times. This
greatly reduces the computation complexity, which is particularly useful for cases in which
low-thrust trajectories need to be calculated many millions of times, as is the case in this
thesis. The fidelity of the model can also be easily fine-tuned. By simply increasing the
number of sub-arcs, one can rapidly approach a fidelity equal to a continuous low-thrust
trajectory within the Two-Body Problem, with only linearly-increasing computation time.
\chapter{Interplanetary Trajectory Considerations} \label{interplanetary}
The question of interplanetary travel opens up a host of additional new complexities. While
optimizations for simple single-body trajectories are far from simple, it can at least be
said that the assumptions of the Two Body Problem remain fairly valid. In interplanetary
travel, the primary body most responsible for gravitational forces might be a number of
different bodies, dependent on the phase of the mission. In the ideal case, every relevant
body would be considered as an ``n-body'' perturbation during the entire trajectory. For
some approaches, this method is sufficient and preferred. However, for other uses, a more
efficient model is necessary. The method of patched conics can be applied in this case to
simplify the model.
Interplanetary travel does not simply negatively impact trajectory optimization. The
increased complexity of the search space also opens up new opportunities for orbit
strategies. The primary strategy investigated by this thesis will be the gravity assist, a
technique for utilizing the gravitational energy of a planet to modify the direction of
solar velocity.
\section{Patched Conics}
The first hurdle to deal with is the problem of reconciling the Two-Body problem with
the presence of multiple and varying planetary bodies. The most common method for
approaching this is the method of patched conics. In this model, we break the
interplanetary trajectory up into a series of smaller sub-trajectories. During each of
these sub-trajectories, a single primary is considered to be responsible for the
trajectory of the orbit, via the Two-Body problem.
The transition point can be calculated a variety of ways. The most typical method is to
calculate the gravitational force due to the two bodies separately, via the Two-Body
models. Whichever primary is a larger influence on the motion of the spacecraft is
considered to be the primary at that moment. This effectively breaks the trajectory into
a series of orbits defined by the Two-Body problem (conics), patched together by
distinct transition points.
\section{Gravity Assist Maneuvers}
As previously mentioned, there are methods for utilizing the orbital energy of the other
planets in the Solar System. This is achieved via a technique known as a Gravity Assist,
or a Gravity Flyby. During a gravity assist, the spacecraft enters into the
gravitational sphere of influence of the planet and, because of its excess velocity,
proceeds to exit the sphere of influence. Relative to the planet, the speed of the
spacecraft increases as it approaches, then decreases as it departs. From the
perspective of the planet, the velocity of the spacecraft is unchanged. However, the
planet is also orbiting the Sun.
From the perspective of a Sun-centered frame, though, this is effectively an elastic
collision. The overall momentum remains the same, with the spacecraft either gaining or
losing some in the process (dependent on the directions of travel). The planet also
loses or gains momentum enough to maintain the overall system momentum, but this amount
is negligible compared to the total momentum of the planet. The overall effect is that
the spacecraft arrives at the planet from one direction and, because of the influence of
the planet, leaves in a different direction.
This effect can be used strategically. The ``bend'' due to the flyby is actually
tunable via the exact placement of the fly-by in the b-frame, or the frame centered at
the planet, from the perspective of the spacecraft at $v_\infty$. By modifying the
turning angle of this bend. In doing so, one can effectively achieve a (restricted) free
impulsive thrust event.
\section{Multiple Gravity Assist Techniques}
Naturally, therefore, one would want to utilize these gravity flybys to reduce the fuel
cost to arrive at their destination target state. However, these flyby maneuvers are
quite restricted. The incoming hyperbolic velocity must be equal in magnitude to the
outgoing hyperbolic velocity. Also, the turning angle $\delta$, in the following
equation, correlates with the radius of periapsis of the hyperbolic trajectory crossing
the planet:
\begin{equation}
r_p = \frac{\mu}{v_\infty^2} \left[ \frac{1}{\sin\left(\frac{\delta}{2}\right)} - 1 \right]
\end{equation}
Where $v_\infty$ is the magnitude of hyperbolic velocity. Naturally, the radius of
periapsis must not fall below some safe value, in order to avoid the risk of the
spacecraft crashing into the planet or its atmosphere.
In order to visualize which trajectories are possible within these constraints, porkchop
plots are often employed, such as the plot in Figure~\ref{porkchop}. These plots outline
various incoming and outgoing qualities of the trajectory arc between two planetary
bodies. For instance, during an arc from launch at Earth to a flyby one might plot the
launch C3 against the Mars arrival $v_\infty$ for a variety of launch and arrival dates.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/porkchop}
\caption{A sample porkchop plot of an Earth-Mars transfer}
\label{porkchop}
\end{figure}
This is made possible by solving Lambert's problem for the planetary ephemeris at the
epochs plotted. Lambert's problem is concerned with determining the orbit between two
positions at two different times in space. There are a number of different Lambert's
problem algorithms that allow a mission designer to determine the velocity needed (and
thus the $\Delta V$) required to achieve a position at a later time. From this, the
designer can algorithmically determine trajectory properties in the porkchop plot for
easy visualization.
However, this is an impulsive thrust-centered approach. The solution to Lambert's
problem assumes a natural trajectory. However, to the low-thrust designer, this is
needlessly limiting. A natural trajectory is unnecessary when the trajectory can be
modified by a continuous thrust profile along the arc. Therefore, for the hybrid problem
of optimizing both flyby selection and thrust profiles, porkchop plots are less helpful,
and an algorithmic approach is preferred.
% \chapter{Genetic Algorithms}
% I will probably give only a brief overview of genetic algorithms here. I don't personally know
% that much about them. Then in the following subsections I can discuss the parts that are
% relevant to the specific algorithm that I'm using.
% \section{Decision Vectors}
% Discuss what a decision vector is in the context of an optimization problem.
% \section{Selection and Fitness Evaluation}
% Discuss the costing being used as well as the different types of fitness evaluation that are
% common. Also discuss the concept of generations and ``survival''.
% \subsection{Tournament Selection}
% Dive deeper into the specific selection algorithm being used here.
% \section{Crossover}
% Discuss the concept of crossover and procreation in a genetic algorithm.
% \subsection{Binary Crossover}
% Discuss specific crossover algorithm used here.
% \subsection{Mutation}
% Discuss both the necessity for mutation and the mutation algorithm being used.
\chapter{Algorithm Overview} \label{algorithm}
In this section, we will review the actual execution of the algorithm developed. As an
overview, the routine was developed to enable the determination of an optimized spacecraft
trajectory from the selection of some very basic mission parameters. Those parameters
include:
\begin{itemize}
\item Spacecraft dry mass
\item Thruster Specific Impulse
\item Thruster Maximum Thrusting Force
\item Thruster Duty Cycle Percentage
\item Number of Thruster on Spacecraft
\item Total Starting Weight of the Spacecraft
\item A Maximum Acceptable $V_\infty$ at arrival and $C_3$ at launch
\item The Launch Window Timing and the Latest Arrival
\item A cost function relating the mass usage, $v_\infty$ at arrival, and $C_3$ at
launch to a cost
\item A list of flyby planets starting with Earth and ending with the destination
\end{itemize}
Which allows for extremely automated optimization of the trajectory, while still providing
the mission designer with the flexibility to choose the particular flyby planets to
investigate.
This is achieved via an optimal control problem in which the ``inner loop'' is a
non-linear programming problem to determine the optimal low-thrust control law and flyby
parameters given a suitable initial guess. Then an ``outer loop'' monotonic basin hopping
algorithm is used to traverse the search space and more carefully optimize the solutions
found by the inner loop.
\section{Trajectory Composition}
In this thesis, a specific nomenclature will be adopted to define the stages of an
interplanetary mission in order to standardize the discussion about which aspects of the
software affect which phases of the mission.
Overall, a mission is considered to be the entire overall trajectory. In the context of
this software procedure, a mission is taken to always begin at the Earth, with some
initial launch C3 intended to be provided by an external launch vehicle. This C3 is not
fully specified by the mission designer, but instead is optimized as a part of the
overall cost function (and normalized by a designer-specified maximum allowable value).
This overall mission can then be broken down into a variable number of ``phases''
defined as beginning at one planetary body with some excess hyperbolic velocity and
ending at another. The first phase of the mission is from the Earth to the first flyby
planet. The final phase is from the last flyby planet to the planet of interest.
Each of these phases are then connected by a flyby event at the boundary. Each flyby
event must satisfy the following conditions:
\begin{enumerate}
\item The planet at the end of one phase must match the planet at the beginning of
the next phase.
\item The magnitude of the excess hyperbolic velocity coming into the planet (at the
end of the previous phase) must equal the magnitude of the excess hyperbolic
velocity leaving the planet (at the beginning of the next phase).
\item The flyby ``turning angle'' must be such that the craft maintains a safe
minimum altitude above the surface or atmosphere of the flyby planet.
\end{enumerate}
These conditions then effectively stitch the separate mission phases into a single
coherent mission, allowing for the optimization of both individual phases and the entire
mission as a whole. This nomenclature is similar to the nomenclature adopted by Jacob
Englander in his Hybrid Optimal Control Problem paper, but does not allow for missions
with multiple targets, simplifying the optimization.
\section{Inner Loop Implementation}\label{inner_loop_section}
The optimization routine can be reasonable separated into two separate ``loops'' wherein
the first loop is used, given an initial guess, to find valid trajectories within the
region of the initial guess and submit the best. The outer loop is then used to traverse
the search space and supply the initial loop with a number of well chosen initial
guesses.
Figure~\ref{nlp} provides an overview of the process of breaking a mission guess down
into an NLP, but there are essentially three primary routines involved in the inner
loop. A given state is propagated forward using the LaGuerre-Conway Kepler solution
algorithm, which itself is used to generate powered trajectory arcs via the
Sims-Flanagan transcribed propagator. Finally, these powered arcs are connected via a
multiple-shooting non-linear optimization problem. The trajectories describing each
phase complete one ``Mission Guess'' which is fed to the non-linear solver to generate
one valid trajectory within the vicinity of the original Mission Guess.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flowcharts/nlp}
\caption{A flowchart of the Non-Linear Problem Solving Formulation}
\label{nlp}
\end{figure}
\subsection{LaGuerre-Conway Kepler Solver}
The most basic building block of any trajectory is a physical model for simulating
natural trajectories from one point forward in time. The approach taken by this
paper uses the solution to Kepler's equation put forward by
Conway\cite{laguerre_conway} in 1986 in order to provide simple and very
processor-efficient propagation without the use of integration. The code logic
itself is actually quite simple, providing an approach similar to the Newton-Raphson
approach for finding the roots of the Battin form of Kepler's equation.
The following pseudo-code outlines the approach taken for the elliptical case. The
approach is quite similar when $a<0$:
% TODO: Some symbols here aren't recognized by the font
\begin{singlespacing}
\begin{verbatim}
i = 0
# First declare some useful variables from the state
σ0 = (position ⋅ velocity) / √(μ)
a = 1 / ( 2/norm(position) - norm(velocity)^2/μ )
coeff = 1 - norm(position)/a
# This loop is essentially a second-order Newton solver for ΔE
ΔM = ΔE_new = √(μ/a^3) * time
ΔE = 1000
while abs(ΔE - ΔE_new) > 1e-10
ΔE = ΔE_new
F = ΔE - ΔM + σ0 / √(a) * (1-cos(ΔE)) - coeff * sin(ΔE)
dF = 1 + σ0 / √(a) * sin(ΔE) - coeff * cos(ΔE)
d2F = σ0 / √(a) * cos(ΔE) + coeff * sin(ΔE)
ΔE_new = ΔE - n*F / ( dF + sign(dF) * √(abs((n-1)^2*dF^2 - n*(n-1)*F*d2F )))
i += 1
end
# ΔE can then be used to determine the F/Ft and G/Gt coefficients
F = 1 - a/norm(position) * (1-cos(ΔE))
G = a * σ0/ √(μ) * (1-cos(ΔE)) + norm(position) * √(a) / √(μ) * sin(ΔE)
r = a + (norm(position) - a) * cos(ΔE) + σ0 * √(a) * sin(ΔE)
Ft = -√(a)*√(μ) / (r*norm(position)) * sin(ΔE)
Gt = 1 - a/r * (1-cos(ΔE))
# Which provide transformations from the original position and velocity to the
# final
final_position = F*position + G*velocity
final_velocity = Ft*position + Gt*velocity
\end{verbatim}
\end{singlespacing}
This approach was validated by generating known good orbits in the 2 Body Problem.
For example, from the orbital parameters of a certain state, the orbital period can
be determined. If the system is then propagated for an integer multiple of the orbit
period, the state should remain exactly the same as it began. In
Figure~\ref{laguerre_plot} an example of such an orbit is provided.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/laguerre_plot}
\caption{Example of a natural trajectory propagated via the Laguerre-Conway
approach to solving Kepler's Problem}
\label{laguerre_plot}
\end{figure}
% TODO: Consider adding a paragraph about the improvements in processor time
\subsection{Sims-Flanagan Propagator}
Until this point, we've not yet discussed how best to model the low-thrust
trajectory arcs themselves. The Laguerre-Conway algorithm efficiently determines
natural trajectories given an initial state, but it still remains, given a control
law, that we'd like to determine the trajectory of a system with continuous input
thrust.
For this, we leverage the Sims-Flanagan transcription mentioned earlier. This allows
us to break a single phase into a number of ($n$) different arcs. At the center of
each of these arcs we can place a small impulsive burn, scaled appropriately for the
thruster configured on the spacecraft of interest. Therefore, for any given phase,
we actually split the trajectory into $2n$ sub-trajectories, with $n$ scaled
impulsive thrust events. As $n$ is increased, the trajectory becomes increasingly
accurate as a model of low-thrust propulsion in the 2BP. This allows the mission
designer to trade-off speed of propagation and the fidelity of the results quite
effectively.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/spiral_plot}
\caption{An example trajectory showing that classic continuous-thrust orbit
shapes, such as this orbit spiral, are easily achievable using a Sims-Flanagan
model}
\label{sft_plot}
\end{figure}
Figure~\ref{sft_plot} shows that the Sims-Flanagan transcription model can be used
to effectively model these types of orbit trajectories. In fact, the Sims-Flanagan
model is capable of modeling nearly any low-thrust trajectory with a sufficiently
high number of $n$ samples.
\subsection{Non-Linear Problem Solver}
Now that we have the basic building blocks of a continuous-thrust trajectory, we can
leverage one of the many non-linear optimization packages to find solutions near to
a (proposed) trajectory. This trajectory need not be valid.
For the purposes of discussion in this Section, we will assume that the inner-loop
algorithm starts with just such a ''Mission Guess``, which represents the proposed
trajectory. However, we'll briefly mention what quantities are needed for this
input:
A Mission Guess object contains:
\begin{singlespacing}
\begin{itemize}
\item The spacecraft and thruster parameters for the mission
\item A launch date
\item A launch $v_\infty$ vector representing excess Earth velocity
\item For each phase of the mission:
\begin{itemize}
\item The planet that the spacecraft will encounter (either flyby or
complete the mission) at the end of the phase
\item The $v_{\infty,out}$ vector representing excess velocity at the
planetary flyby (or launch if phase 1) at the beginning of the phase
\item The $v_{\infty,in}$ vector representing excess velocity at the
planetary flyby (or completion of mission) at the end of the phase
\item The time of flight for the phase
\item The unit-thrust profile in a sun-fixed frame represented by a
series of vectors with each element ranging from 0 to 1.
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
\end{singlespacing}
From this information, as can be seen in Figure~\ref{nlp}, we can formulate the
mission in terms of a non-linear problem. Specifically, the Mission Guess object can
be represented as a vector, $x$, the propagation function as a function $F$, and the
constraints as another function $G$ such that $G(x) = \vec{0}$.
This is a format that we can apply directly to the IPOPT solver, which Julia (the
programming language used) can utilize via bindings supplied by the SNOW.jl
package\cite{snow}.
IPOPT also requires the derivatives of both the $F$ and $G$ functions in the
formulation above. Generally speaking, a project designer has two options for
determining derivatives. The first option is to analytically determine the
derivatives, guaranteeing accuracy, but requiring processor time if determined
algorithmically and sometimes simply impossible or mathematically very rigorous to
determine manually. The second option is to numerically derive the derivatives,
using a technique such as finite differencing. This limits the accuracy, but can be
faster than algorithmic symbolic manipulation and doesn't require rigorous manual
derivations.
However, the Julia language has an excellent interface to a new technique, known as
automatic differentiation\cite{RevelsLubinPapamarkou2016}. Automatic differentiation
takes a slightly different approach to numerical derivation. It takes advantage of
the fact that any algorithmic function, no matter how complicated, can be broken
down into a series of smaller arithmetic functions, down to the level of simple
arithmetic. Since all of these simple arithmetic functions have a known derivative,
we can define a new datatype that carries through the function both the float and a
second number representing the derivative. Then, by applying (to the derivative) the
chain rule for every minute arithmetic function derivative as that arithmetic
function is applied to the main float value, the derivative can be determined,
accurate to the machine precision of the float type being used, with a processing
equivalent of two function calls (this of course depends on the simplicity of the
chained derivatives compared to the function pieces themselves). Generally speaking
this is much faster than the three or more function calls necessary for accurate
finite differencing and removes the need for the designer to tweak the epsilon value
in order to achieve maximum precision.
\section{Outer Loop Implementation}
Now we have the tools in place for, given a potential ''mission guess`` in the
vicinity of a valid guess, attempting to find a valid and optimal solution in that
vicinity. Now what remains is to develop a routine for efficiently generating these
random mission guesses in such a way that thoroughly searches the entirety of the
solution space with enough granularity that all spaces are considered by the inner loop
solver.
Once that has been accomplished, all that remains is an ''outer loop`` that can generate
new guesses or perturb existing valid missions as needed in order to drill down into a
specific local minimum. In this thesis, that is accomplished through the use of a
Monotonic Basin Hopping algorithm. This will be described more thoroughly in
Section~\ref{mbh_subsection}, but Figure~\ref{mbh_flow} outlines the process steps of
the algorithm.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{flowcharts/mbh}
\caption{A flowchart visualizing the steps in the monotonic basin hopping
algorithm}
\label{mbh_flow}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Random Mission Generation}\label{random_gen_section}
At a basic level, the algorithm needs to produce a mission guess (represented by all
of the values described in Section~\ref{inner_loop_section}) that contains random
values within reasonable bounds in the space. This leaves a number of variables open
to for implementation. For instance, it remains to be determined which distribution
function to use for the random values over each of those variables, which bounds to
use, as well as the possibilities for any improvements to a purely random search.
Currently, the first value set for the mission guess is that of $n$, which is the
number of sub-trajectories that each arc will be broken into for the Sims-Flanagan
based propagator. For this implementation, that was chosen to be 20, based upon a
number of tests in which the calculation time for the propagation was compared
against the accuracy of a much higher $n$ value for some known thrust controls, such
as a simple spiral orbit trajectory. This value of 20 tends to perform well and
provide reasonable accuracy, without producing too many variables for the NLP
optimizer to control for (since the impulsive thrust at the center of each of the
sub-trajectories is a control variable). This leaves some room for future
improvements, as will be discussed in Section~\ref{improvement_section}.
The bounds for the launch date are provided by the user in the form of a launch
window, so the initial launch date is just chosen as a standard random value from a
uniform distribution within those bounds.
A unit launch direction is then also chosen as a 3-length vector of uniform random
numbers, then normalized. This unit vector is then multiplied by a uniform random
number between 0 and the square root of the maximum launch $C_3$ specified by the
user to generate an initial $\vec{v_\infty}$ vector at launch.
Next, the times of flight of each phase of the mission is then decided. Since launch
date has already been selected, the maximum time of flight can be calculated by
subtracting the launch date from the latest arrival date provided by the mission
designer. Then, each leg is chosen from a uniform distribution with bounds currently
set to a minimum flight time of 30 days and a maximum of 70\% of the maximum time of
flight. These leg flight times are then iteratively re-generated until the total
time of flight (represented by the sum of the leg flight times) is less than the
maximum time of flight. This allows for a lot of flexibility in the leg flight
times, but does tend toward more often producing longer missions, particularly for
missions with more flybys.
Then, the internal components for each phase are generated. It is at this step, that
the mission guess generator splits the outputs into two separate outputs. The first
is meant to be truly random, as is generally used as input for a monotonic basin
hopping algorithm. The second utilizes a Lambert's solver to determine the
appropriate hyperbolic velocities (both in and out) at each flyby to generate a
natural trajectory arc. For this Lambert's case, the mission guess is simply seeded
with zero thrust controls and outputted to the monotonic basin hopper. The intention
here is that if the time of flights are randomly chosen so as to produce a
trajectory that is possible with a control in the vicinity of a natural trajectory,
we want to be sure to find that trajectory. More detail on how this is handled is
available in Section~\ref{mbh_subsection}.
However, for the truly random mission guess, there are still the $v_\infty$ values
and the initial thrust guesses to generate. For each of the phases, the incoming
excess hyperbolic velocity is calculated in much the same way that the launch
velocity was calculated. However, instead of multiplying the randomly generate unit
direction vector by a random number between 0 and the square root of the maximum
launch $C_3$, bounds of 0 and 10 kilometers per second are used instead, to provide
realistic flyby values.
The outgoing excess hyperbolic velocity at infinity is then calculated by again
choosing a uniform random unit direction vector, then by multiplying this value by
the magnitude of the incoming $v_{\infty}$ since this is a constraint of a
non-powered flyby.
From these two velocity vectors the turning angle, and thus the periapsis of the
flyby, can then be calculated by the following equations:
\begin{align}
\delta &= \arccos \left( \frac{\vec{v}_{\infty,in} \cdot
\vec{v}_{\infty,out}}{|v_{\infty,in}| \cdot {|v_{\infty,out}}|} \right) \\
r_p &= \frac{\mu}{\vec{v}_{\infty,in} \cdot \vec{v}_{\infty,out}} \cdot \left(
\frac{1}{\sin(\delta/2)} - 1 \right)
\end{align}
If this radius of periapse is then found to be less than the minimum safe radius
(currently set to the radius of the planet plus 100 kilometers), then the process is
repeated with new random flyby velocities until a valid seed flyby is found. These
checks are also performed each time a mission is perturbed or generated by the nlp
solver.
The final requirement then, is the thrust controls, which are actually quite simple.
Since the thrust is defined as a 3-vector of values between -1 and 1 representing
some percentage of the full thrust producible by the spacecraft thrusters in that
direction, the initial thrust controls can then be generated as a $20 \times 3$
matrix of uniform random numbers within that bound.
\subsection{Monotonic Basin Hopping}\label{mbh_subsection}
Now that a generator has been developed for mission guesses, we can build the
monotonic basin hopping algorithm. Since the implementation of the MBH algorithm
used in this paper differs from the standard implementation, the standard version
won't be described here. Instead, the variation used in this paper, with some
performance improvements, will be considered.
The aim of a monotonic basin hopping algorithm is to provide an efficient method for
completely traversing a large search space and providing many seed values within the
space for an ''inner loop`` solver or optimizer. These solutions are then perturbed
slightly, in order to provide higher fidelity searching in the space near valid
solutions in order to fully explore the vicinity of discovered local minima. This
makes it an excellent algorithm for problems with a large search space, including
several clusters of local minima, such as this application.
The algorithm contains two loops, the size of each of which can be independently
modified (generally by specifying a ''patience value``, or number of loops to
perform, for each) to account for trade-offs between accuracy and performance depending on
mission needs and the unique qualities of a certain search space.
The first loop, the ''search loop``, first calls the random mission generator. This
generator produces two random missions as described in
Section~\ref{random_gen_section} that differ only in that one contains random flyby
velocities and control thrusts and the other contains Lambert's-solved flyby
velocities and zero control thrusts. For each of these guesses, the NLP solver is
called. If either of these mission guesses have converged onto a valid solution, the
lower loop, the ''drill loop`` is entered for the valid solution. After the
convergence checks and potentially drill loops are performed, if a valid solution
has been found, this solution is stored in an archive. If the solution found is
better than the current best solution in the archive (as determined by a
user-provided cost function of fuel usage, $C_3$ at launch, and $v-\infty$ at
arrival) then the new solution replaces the current best solution and the loop is
repeated. Taken by itself, the search loop should quickly generate enough random
mission guesses to find all ''basins`` or areas in the solution space with valid
trajectories, but never attempts to more thoroughly explore the space around valid
solutions within these basins.
The drill loop, then, is used for this purpose. For the first step of the drill
loop, the current solution is saved as the ''basin solution``. If it's better than
the current best, it also replaces the current best solution. Then, until the
stopping condition has been met (generally when the ''drill counter`` has reached
the ''drill patience`` value) the current solution is perturbed slightly by adding
or subtracting a small random value to the components of the mission.
The performance of this perturbation in terms of more quickly converging upon the
true minimum of that particular basin, as described in detail by
Englander\cite{englander2014tuning}, is highly dependent on the distribution
function used for producing these random perturbations. While the intuitive choice
of a simple Gaussian distribution would make sense to use, it has been found that a
long-tailed distribution, such as a Cauchy distribution or a Pareto distribution is
more robust in terms of well chose boundary conditions and initial seed solutions as
well as more performant in time required to converge upon the minimum for that basin.
Because of this, the perturbation used in this implementation follows a
bi-directional, long-tailed Pareto distribution generated by the following
probability density function:
\begin{equation}
1 +
\left[ \frac{s}{\epsilon} \right] \cdot
\left[ \frac{\alpha - 1}{\frac{\epsilon}{\epsilon + r}^{-\alpha}} \right]
\end{equation}
Where $s$ is a random array of signs (either plus one or minus one) with dimension
equal to the perturbed variable and bounds of -1 and 1, $r$ is a uniformly
distributed random array with dimension equal to the perturbed variable and bounds
of 0 and 1, $\epsilon$ is a small value (nominally set to $1e-10$), and $\alpha$ is
a tuning parameter to determine the size of the tails and width of the distribution
set to $1.01$, but easily tunable.
The perturbation function, then steps through each parameter of the mission,
generating a new mission guess with the parameters modified by the above Pareto
distribution. After this perturbation, the NLP solver is then called again to find
a valid solution in the vicinity of this new guess. If the solution is better than
the current basin solution, it replaces that value and the drill counter is reset to
zero. If it is better than the current total best, it replaces that value as well.
Otherwise, the drill counter increments and the process is repeated. Therefore, the
drill patience allows the mission designer to determine a maximum number of
iterations to perform without any improvements in a row before ending a given drill
loop. This process can be repeated essentially ''search patience`` number of times
in order to fully traverse all basins.
\chapter{Results Analysis} \label{results}
The algorithm described in this thesis is quite flexible in its design and could be used as
a tool for a mission designer on a variety of different mission types. However, to consider
a relatively simple but representative mission design objective, a sample mission to Saturn
was investigated.
\section{Mission Constraints}
The sample mission was defined to represent a general case for a near-future low-thrust
trajectory to Saturn. No constraints were placed on the flyby planets, but a number of
constraints were placed on the algorithm to represent a realistic mission scenario.
The first choice required by the application is one not necessarily designable to the
initial mission designer (though not necessarily fixed in the design either) and is that
of the spacecraft parameters. The application accepts as input a spacecraft object
containing: the dry mass of the craft, the fuel mass at launch, the number of onboard
thrusters, and the specific impulse, maximum thrust and duty cycle of each thruster.
For this mission, the spacecraft was chosen to have a dry mass of only 200 kilograms for
a fuel mass of 3300 kilograms. This was chosen in order to have an overall mass roughly
in the same zone as that of the Cassini spacecraft, which launched with 5712 kilograms
of total mass, with the fuel accounting for 2978 of those kilograms\cite{cassini}. The
dry mass of the craft was chosen to be extremely low in order to allow for a variety of
''successful`` missions in which the craft didn't run out of fuel. That way, the
delivered dry mass to Saturn could be thought of as a metric of success, without
discounting mission that may have delivered just under whatever more realistic dry mass
one might set, in case those missions are in the vicinity of actually valid missions.
The thruster was chosen to have a specific impulse of 3200 seconds, a maximum thrust of
250 millinewtons, and a 100\% duty cycle. This puts the thruster roughly in line with
having an array of three NSTAR ion thrusters, which were used on the Dawn and Deep Space
1 missions\cite{polk2001performance}.
Also of relevance to the mission were the maximum $C_3$ at launch and $v_\infty$ at
arrival values. In order to not exclude the possibility of a non-capture flyby mission,
it was decided to not include the arrival $v_\infty$ term in the cost function and,
because of this, the maximum value was set to be extremely high at 500 kilometers per
second, in order to fully explore the space. In practice, though, the algorithm only
looks at flybys below 10 kilometers per second in magnitude. The maximum launch $C_3$
energy was set conservatively to 200 kilometers per second squared. This is upper limit
is only possible, for the given start mass, using a heavy launch system such as the
SLS\cite{stough2021nasa} or the comparable SpaceX Starship, though at values below about
half of this maximum, it begins to become possible to use existing launch solutions.
Finally, the mission is meant to represent a near future mission. Therefore the launch
window was set to allow for a launch in any day in 2023 or 2024 and a maximum total time
of flight of 20 years. This is longer than most typical Saturn missions, but allows for
some creative trajectories for higher efficiency.
It should be noted that each of these trajectories was found using an $n$ value of 20 as
mentioned previously, but in post-processing, the trajectory was refined to utilize a
slightly higher fidelity model that uses 60 sub-trajectories per orbit. This serves to
provide better plots for display, higher fidelity analyses, as well as to highlight the
efficacy of the lower fidelity method. Orbits can be found quickly in the lower fidelity
model and easily refined later by re-running the NLP solver at a higher $n$ value.
\subsection{Cost Function}
Each mission optimization also allows for the definition of a cost function. This
cost function accepts as inputs all parameters of the mission, the maximum $C_3$ at
launch and the maximum excess hyperbolic velocity at arrival.
The cost function used for this mission first generated normalized values for fuel
usage and launch energy. The fuel usage number is determined by dividing the fuel
used by the mass at launch and the $C_3$ number is determined by dividing the $C_3$
at launch by the maximum allowed. These two numbers are then weighted, with the fuel
usage value getting a weight of three and the launch energy value getting a weight
of one. The values are summed and returned as the cost value.
\subsection{Flybys Analyzed}
Since the algorithm itself makes no decisions on the actual choice of flybys, that
leaves the mission designer to determine which flyby planets would make good
potential candidates. A mission designer can then re-run the algorithm for each of
these flyby plans and determine which optimized trajectories best fit the needs of
the mission.
For this particular mission scenario, the following flyby profiles were
investigated:
\begin{itemize}
\item EJS
\item EMJS
\item EMMJS
\item EMS
\item ES
\item EVMJS
\item EVMS
\item EVVJS
\end{itemize}
\section{Faster, Less Efficient Trajectory}
In order to showcase the flexibility of the optimization algorithm (and the chosen cost
function), two different missions were chosen to highlight. One of these missions is a
slower, more efficient trajectory more typical of common low-thrust trajectories. The
other is a faster trajectory, quite close to a natural trajectory, but utilizing more
launch energy to arrive at the planet.
It is the faster trajectory that we'll analyze first. Most interesting about this
particular trajectory is that it's actually quite efficient despite its speed, in
contrast to the usual dichotomy of low-thrust travel. The cost function used for this
analysis did not include the time of flight as a component of the overall cost, and yet
this trajectory still managed to be the lowest cost trajectory of all trajectories found
by the algorithm.
The mission begins in late June of 2024 and proceeds first to an initial gravity assist
with Mars after three and one half years to rendezvous in mid-December 2027.
Unfortunately, the launch energy required to effectively used the gravity assist with
Mars at this time is quite high. The $C_3$ value was found to be $60.4102$ kilometers
per second squared. However, for this phase, the thrusters are almost entirely turned
off, allowing for a nearly-natural trajectory to Mars rendezvous.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/EMS_plot}
\caption{Depictions of the faster Earth-Mars-Saturn trajectory found by the
algorithm to be most efficient; planetary ephemeris arcs are shown during the phase
in which the spacecraft approached them}
\label{ems}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/EMS_plot_noplanets}
\caption{Another depiction of the EMS trajectory, without the planetary ephemeris
arcs}
\label{ems_nop}
\end{figure}
The second and final leg of this trip exits the Mars flyby and, initially burns quite
heavily along the velocity vector in order to increase it's semi-major axis. After an
initial period of thrusting, though, the spacecraft effectively coasts with minor
adjustments until its rendezvous with Saturn just four and a half years later in June of
2032. The arrival $v_\infty$ is not particularly small, at $5.816058$ kilometers per
second, but this is to be expected as the arrival excess velocity was not considered as
a part of the cost function. If capture was not the final intention of the mission, this
may be of little concern. Otherwise, the low fuel usage of $446.92$ kilograms for a
$3500$ kilogram launch mass leaves much margin for a large impulsive thrust to enter
into a capture orbit at Saturn.
In this case the algorithm effectively realized that a higher-powered launch from
the Earth, then a natural coasting arc to Mars flyby would provide the spacecraft with
enough velocity that a short but efficient powered-arc to Saturn was possible with
effective thrusting. It also determined that the most effective way to achieve this
flyby was to increase orbital energy in the beginning of the arc, when increasing
the semi-major axis value is most efficient. All of these concepts are known to skilled
mission designers, but finding a trajectory that combined all of these concepts would
have required much time-consuming analysis of porkchop plots and combinations of
mission-design techniques. This approach is far more automatic than the traditional
approach.
The final quality to note with this trajectory is that it shows a tangible benefit of
the addition of the Lambert's solver in the monotonic basin hopping algorithm. Since the
initial arc is almost entirely natural, with very little thrust, it is extremely likely
that the trajectory was found in the Lambert's Solution half of the MBH algorithm
procedure.
\section{Slower, More Efficient Trajectory}
Next we'll analyze the nominally second-best trajectory. While the cost function
provided to the algorithm can be a useful tool for narrowing down the field of search
results, it can also be very useful to explore options that may or may not be of similar
"efficiency" in terms of the cost function, but beneficial for other reasons. By
outputting many different optimal trajectories, the MBH algorithm can allow for this
type of mission design flexibility.
To highlight the flexibility, a second trajectory has been selected, which has nearly
equal value by the cost function, coming in slightly lower. However, this trajectory
appears to offer some benefits to the mission designer who would like to capture into
the gravitational field of Saturn or minimize launch energy requirements, perhaps for a
smaller mission, at the expense of increased speed.
The first leg of this three-leg trajectory is quite similar to the first leg of the
previous trajectory. However, this time the launch energy is considerably lower, with a
$C_3$ value of only $40.4386$ kilometer per second squared. Rather than employ an almost
entirely natural coasting arc to Mars, however, this trajectory performs some thrusting
at about the apoapsis point of its orbit in order to raise the periapsis enough to
rendezvous at roughly the same incidence angle in Mars' orbit, but one revolution ahead.
In this case, the launch was a bit earlier, occurring in November of 2023, with the Mars
flyby occurring in mid-April of 2026. This will prove to be helpful in comparison with
the other result, as this mission profile is much longer.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/EMJS_plot}
\caption{Depictions of the slower Earth-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn trajectory found by the
algorithm to be the second most efficient; planetary ephemeris arcs are shown during
the phase in which the spacecraft approached them}
\label{emjs}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/EMJS_plot_noplanets}
\caption{Another depiction of the EMJS trajectory, without the planetary ephemeris
arcs}
\label{emjs_nop}
\end{figure}
The second phase of this trajectory also functions quite similarly to the second phase
of the previous trajectory. In this case, there is a little bit more thrusting necessary
simply for steering to the Jupiter flyby than was necessary for Saturn rendezvous in the
previous trajectory. However, most of this thrusting is for orbit raising in the
beginning of the phase, very similarly to the previous result. In this trajectory, the
Jupiter flyby occurs late July of 2029.
Finally, this mission also has a third phase. The Jupiter flyby provides quite a strong
$\Delta V$ for the spacecraft, allowing the following phase to largely be a coasting arc
to Saturn almost one revolution later. Because of this long coasting period, the mission
length increases considerably during this leg, arriving at Saturn in December of 2037,
over 8 years after the Jupiter flyby.
However, there are many advantages to this approach relative to the other trajectory.
While the fuel use is also slightly higher at $530.668$ kilograms, plenty of payload
mass is still capable of delivery into the vicinity of Saturn. Also, it should be noted
that the incoming excess hyperbolic velocity at arrival to Saturn is significantly
lower, at only $3.4774$ kilometers per second, meaning that less of the delivered
payload mass would need to be taken up by impulsive thrusters and fuel for Saturn orbit
capture, should the mission designer desire this.
Also, as mentioned before, the launch energy requirements are quite a bit lower. Having
a second mission trajectory capable of launching on a smaller vehicle could be valuable
to a mission designer presenting possibilities. According to an analysis of the Delta IV
and Atlas V launch configurations\cite{c3capabilities} in Figure~\ref{c3}, this
reduction of $C_3$ from around 60 to around 40 brings the sample mission to just within
range of both the Delta IV Heavy and the Atlas V in its largest configuration, neither
of which are possible for the other result, meaning that either different launch
vehicles must be found or mission specifications must change.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{fig/c3}
\caption{Plot of Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicle capabilities as they relate to
payload mass}
\label{c3}
\end{figure}
\chapter{Conclusion} \label{conclusion}
\section{Overview of Results}
A mission designer's job is quite a difficult one and it can be very useful to have
tools to automate some of the more complex analysis. This paper attempted to explore one
such tool, meant for automating the initial analysis and discovery of useful
interplanetary, low-thrust trajectories including the difficult task of optimizing the
flyby parameters. This makes the mission designer's job significantly simpler in that
they can simply explore a number of different flyby selection options in order to get a
good understanding of the mission scope and search space for a given spacecraft, launch
window, and target.
In performing this examination, two results were selected for further analysis. These
results are outlined in Table~\ref{results_table} below:
\begin{table}[h!]
\begin{small}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{ | c c c c c c | }
\hline
\bfseries Flyby Selection &
\bfseries Launch Date &
\bfseries Mission Length &
\bfseries Launch $C_3$ &
\bfseries Arrival $V_\infty$ &
\bfseries Fuel Usage \\
& & (years) & $\left( \frac{km}{s} \right)^2$ & ($\frac{km}{s}$) & (kg) \\
\hline
EMS & 2024-06-27 & 7.9844 & 60.41025 & 5.816058 & 446.9227 \\
EMJS & 2023-11-08 & 14.1072 & 40.43862 & 3.477395 & 530.6683 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{small}
\caption{Comparison of the two most optimal trajectories}
\label{results_table}
\end{table}
As can be seen in the table, both resulting trajectories have trade-offs in mission
length, launch energy, fuel usage, and more. However, both results should be considered
very useful low-thrust trajectories in comparison to other missions that have launched
on similar interplanetary trajectories, using both impulsive and low-thrust arcs with
planetary flybys. Each of these missions should be feasible or nearly feasible (feasible
with some modifications) using existing launch vehicle and certainly even larger
missions should be reasonable with advances in launch capabilities currently being
explored.
\section{Recommendations for Future Work}\label{improvement_section}
In the course of producing this algorithm, a large number of improvement possibilities
were noted. This work was based, in large part, on the work of Jacob Englander in a
number of papers\cite{englander2014tuning}\cite{englander2017automated}
\cite{englander2012automated} in which he explored the hybrid optimal control problem of
multi-objective low-thrust interplanetary trajectories.
In light of this, there are a number of additional approaches that Englander took in
preparing his algorithm that were not implemented here in favor of reducing complexity
and time constraints. For instance, many of the Englander papers explore the concept of
an outer loop that utilizes a genetic algorithm to compare many different flyby planet
choice against each other. This would create a truly automated approach to low-thrust
interplanetary mission planning. However, a requirement of this approach is that the
monotonic basin hopping algorithm algorithm must converge on optimal solutions very
quickly. Englander typically runs his for 20 minutes each for evolutionary fitness
evaluation, which is over an order of magnitude faster than the implementation in this
paper to achieve satisfactory results.
Further improvements to performance stem from the field of computer science. An
evolutionary algorithm such as the one proposed by Englander would benefit from high
levels of parallelization. Therefore, it would be worth considering a GPU-accelerated or
even cluster-computing capable implementation of the monotonic basin hopping algorithm.
These cluster computing concepts scale very well with new cloud infrastructures such as
that provided by AWS or DigitalOcean.
Finally, the monotonic basin hopping algorithm as currently written provides no
guarantees of actual global optimization. Generally optimization is achieved by running
the algorithm until it fails to produce newer, better trajectories for a sufficiently
long time. But it would be worth investigating the robustness of the NLP solver as well
as the robustness of the MBH algorithm basin drilling procedures in order to quantify
the search granularity needed to completely traverse the search space. From this
information, a new MBH algorithm could be written that is guaranteed to explore the
entire space.
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\nocite{*}
\bibliography{thesis}
\appendix
\chapter{Description of Analyzed EMS Mission}
\begin{verbatim}
Spacecraft: ingested
dry_mass: 200.0 kg
specific impulse: 3200.0 kg/s
max_thrust: 0.00025 kN
num_thrusters: 1
duty_cycle: 1.0
Launch Mass: 3500.0 kg
Launch Date: 2024-06-27T19:18:02.199
Launch V∞: [7.318672248992913, -1.529445415719206, -2.1232244559503632] km/s
Phase 1:
Planet: Mars
V∞_in: [7.432780013001029, -6.019743530186103, -1.6225406279089392] km/s
V∞_out: [8.396365726714938, -4.331889724433616, -2.2036070311537257] km/s
time of flight: 1.0927270179201803e8 seconds
arrival date: 2027-12-14T12:49:43.199
thrust profile:
[0.024235377030207825 0.00888170550219598 0.005275020106447728;
0.02399025570663619 0.009687152442138303 0.004849683247103559;
0.0237144984626321 0.010458650361418086 0.004447602441224652;
0.023365271668340265 0.011247241096547612 0.00410447324935814;
0.022940246865578544 0.011992030803744004 0.003821686419038526;
-0.0019431547304985285 0.022688407700327172 0.022416659898786426;
-0.0025131130230123333 0.023295814088309913 0.02221394673732401;
-0.003088246519407214 0.023857826650815685 0.022054838661828224;
-0.0037472235028326384 0.024343551156414713 0.021927933373391342;
-0.0044375927787249055 0.02478918143527712 0.021844394088438177;
-0.026105255729024664 0.038220540187214436 0.036279642377852375;
-0.026780618554629817 0.03853252364509573 0.03626804427696657;
-0.027455978112321453 0.038792575810529445 0.03625595201277916;
-0.028141168092815964 0.03898902440339647 0.03629021876552949;
-0.028809778187518193 0.03915971736492042 0.03633253932440753;
-0.060178198449693604 0.045863248834624344 0.0437825750159069;
-0.060832086109981906 0.04595200237956805 0.043845903840319694;
-0.0614637322369173 0.04600218250765508 0.04392587747786364;
-0.06208119542067157 0.046009361980197346 0.0440084727217644;
-0.06270325274839472 0.04598208821563583 0.0441084524424021;
-0.09349526192155118 0.04200434863352099 0.044382762987534824;
-0.09405840998459714 0.04192551288186246 0.04450187342394806;
-0.0946401085181183 0.04180206021631332 0.04461269535084477;
-0.09517609258972438 0.0416750889768316 0.04474097351038166;
-0.09569378105613152 0.041494386743123786 0.044851711195200004;
-0.12403677347765954 0.031062806563607895 0.042227942339192845;
-0.12452087322352202 0.030850448440375176 0.04235699321988777;
-0.12498864069285591 0.030627282643177295 0.0425049647904722;
-0.1254422057489061 0.03037782952573744 0.042636495744786264;
-0.1258602731937137 0.0301269442123315 0.04277532634721488;
-0.15685874809356395 0.015781803191410225 0.04125604163667304;
-0.15724410737409986 0.01548663048123 0.04140397438274824;
-0.15761543915061418 0.015174596469721642 0.041548585916012765;
-0.15796668613822373 0.014825860053564717 0.04170193705279365;
-0.15829074995512293 0.014483196359902813 0.04182661977219703;
-0.18321198149177034 -0.006718420238249819 0.037981449142584056;
-0.18350601725900687 -0.00708380754148209 0.0381377971297988;
-0.18375962522349495 -0.007485844440849063 0.038266130099955505;
-0.18401156514951283 -0.007868425114854648 0.03841853545942695;
-0.18423751994903437 -0.0082750576401688 0.03856460443961429;
-0.2024862754992264 -0.034848711542048265 0.03336400247905138;
-0.2026707344937845 -0.035283049103160546 0.03350436335716191;
-0.20284629279949265 -0.035719294394551654 0.03364110087797018;
-0.2029945887354837 -0.036172019668414865 0.03379806025832671;
-0.20311261765668395 -0.0366322645727282 0.0339245665278438;
-0.21245470288929072 -0.06717661453328558 0.027283225271794283;
-0.21254193080868825 -0.0676387475174252 0.02742259138543629;
-0.2126099084522529 -0.0681289229181636 0.027561473450575184;
-0.21265945852435034 -0.06860590656971097 0.02769054749028669;
-0.21269589565868435 -0.06910164866049198 0.027835587629257585;
-0.22095520431071133 -0.1034315240983098 0.02195619219040112;
-0.22095363324455022 -0.1039363396014177 0.02208001814134371;
-0.2209258519378579 -0.10444228817076168 0.02218803322309374;
-0.22087725118828272 -0.10492891836947225 0.022330163267422397;
-0.22080533929239932 -0.10544299107251072 0.022449713415175286;
-0.19442709993064522 -0.14170202258034095 0.011558151934536999;
-0.19431523610918064 -0.14220741730049713 0.011667367575730591;
-0.19417317244980273 -0.14271188729460021 0.01178096590548684;
-0.1939941491085289 -0.1432112391035578 0.011875683618928344;
-0.19379659796210602 -0.1437113505886065 0.011971596929650875;
-0.20839820924658076 -0.18973385738164752 0.009307451886292192;
-0.20815817838894604 -0.19021671829427775 0.009393548264616419;
-0.20788715281082848 -0.1907053323143535 0.009473574125552149;
-0.20759267564754758 -0.19117297352465665 0.009563518034576692;
-0.20725730932050385 -0.19164267398389476 0.00963504586160516;
-0.1961075700059922 -0.24290142178750415 0.0038507129511980015;
-0.19572169681551538 -0.24334914331638396 0.003899832796131259;
-0.19530334973600788 -0.24379282734187754 0.003967473955005566;
-0.19482592064607568 -0.2442236000134374 0.004013758357476628;
-0.19435132556752394 -0.2446385052975962 0.004041938132303195;
-0.16465195313849423 -0.3004276434505404 -0.0025477773747229144;
-0.16406454228555667 -0.3008173014857693 -0.002534902557883806;
-0.16344445045215752 -0.3011845231864255 -0.0025138987633786056;
-0.1627790118528474 -0.30153330249237564 -0.0025126609092452866;
-0.16205639079546422 -0.3018791849184296 -0.00252773549828917;
-0.11454723260483883 -0.36146563395819015 -0.008724503528927063;
-0.11374530519473426 -0.3617514022893357 -0.008763083025138563;
-0.11286008364160728 -0.3620075243586088 -0.008811341523550892;
-0.11192599887952116 -0.36222778056355126 -0.008862827469500274;
-0.11094519109599958 -0.3624097362213787 -0.008962625818756769;
-0.02391505591401128 -0.41864273911091776 -0.015187178892217643;
-0.02279902972952809 -0.4187484864971973 -0.01532144436549937;
-0.02162632152143365 -0.4187931725195911 -0.015456346700485964;
-0.020391897110791923 -0.4187740995712499 -0.015610805544610595;
-0.019101999843222355 -0.41868878897997275 -0.01579853500286071;
0.18376634235176048 -0.4320763402653023 -0.02817451009484391;
0.18514409741232546 -0.4318093470304242 -0.02842018614555766;
0.1865424521966812 -0.4314123035364245 -0.028679538560778695;
0.18794100981484788 -0.43087767476266803 -0.028977178116178365;
0.18932086049377508 -0.430176573615346 -0.02927532805815704;
0.4837483008894513 -0.30082715558431117 -0.05230879791806509;
0.4849770899365583 -0.29968442455901756 -0.052680313525351165;
0.48605025678632957 -0.29834697789345743 -0.05307023899553684;
0.48693403264870355 -0.296777549423668 -0.05347081616460879;
0.4875876938768627 -0.29502768045570976 -0.05387046513476967;
0.5997886548585618 -0.05017567151672444 -0.04220063350923577;
0.5999113857257048 -0.04825130664045737 -0.0425898328606256;
0.5997797857664303 -0.046377827441315855 -0.04295737068172849;
0.5994264737794556 -0.04459532310393294 -0.04329715637337397;
0.5988885340570684 -0.04294830975144203 -0.043619159341178826] %
Phase 2:
Planet: Saturn
V∞_in: [5.118021911011515, 2.7626475209564307, 0.012833534427407025] km/s
V∞_out: [0.04582457242616684, 0.2173338665561733, -0.5293480027886823] km/s
time of flight: 1.425235096053827e8 seconds
arrival date: 2032-06-20T02:41:32.199
thrust profile:
[0.6329930516298814 0.3754387300559965 -0.041278153465157376;
0.6316440411687961 0.3771539432333103 -0.04188668511010197;
0.6302151630695931 0.37830148957229065 -0.04241470095684055;
0.6288015612616553 0.3789983607933317 -0.04289870652729237;
0.6274575627177201 0.37938177126004463 -0.04331674239208846;
0.3444831378016049 0.4584427028939501 -0.01962983038346585;
0.343350313682236 0.45843215556913436 -0.019974532323669136;
0.3423488229049882 0.4583226246957569 -0.02026887281309082;
0.3414712037645477 0.45814459638568994 -0.020531801085877724;
0.34069847825976424 0.4579222760137032 -0.020769373866713528;
0.2309654960711884 0.3890497901392047 -0.032657315112688504;
0.23037656940414789 0.3887852800660396 -0.03283600644592424;
0.22986064892155578 0.3885136473355805 -0.03299996243030687;
0.2294073521107295 0.3882409934584674 -0.0331346252769696;
0.22900442123476075 0.3879741809050926 -0.033255534578159524;
0.1776968304910734 0.2857905066551956 -0.052473839368448266;
0.17738168095719187 0.28553616026198864 -0.05255798491622259;
0.17710100604422802 0.2852893588307732 -0.05263007802104745;
0.17684981431112315 0.285050899002354 -0.05269073773925025;
0.17661826565812588 0.2848216419041406 -0.052736460878895185;
0.16302803071535937 0.2288440324934438 -0.05295539189756392;
0.16284148405624235 0.22863476718195005 -0.052979024771766504;
0.16267376993666366 0.22843348716311554 -0.052992796276301664;
0.16252035790823205 0.22823748939942143 -0.0529990756032091;
0.16237974278262335 0.22805068690324026 -0.052998820166630004;
0.13417956270125225 0.18796600274090727 -0.05143256089624221;
0.1340623808993445 0.18779402300149806 -0.05141714589345775;
0.13395315890550555 0.18762968151984613 -0.051392473738747876;
0.1338523104178968 0.18747060727932557 -0.05136297638267751;
0.13375902683375174 0.18731665141801573 -0.05132801422329071;
0.12758214347585456 0.15340398397435048 -0.05168052476232358;
0.12749939620036213 0.15326098428950718 -0.051633621693863346;
0.12742364258649297 0.15312464804515485 -0.051582232628574747;
0.127351796100246 0.15299516000753102 -0.05152580226049547;
0.12728610095610415 0.15286771555716733 -0.05146438099691739;
0.10363864135617362 0.13303810609450925 -0.04523719298505366;
0.10357714058263788 0.13292093309625866 -0.04516603592319711;
0.10352044081060598 0.13280554812600356 -0.04509328051622902;
0.10346628293604881 0.1326945241515048 -0.04501460858407201;
0.10341668769647967 0.13258690813141388 -0.04493381158618556;
0.08849399118613269 0.11680369317500992 -0.039280465917766516;
0.08844465220057159 0.11670144773928037 -0.039190520117983456;
0.0883990105248394 0.11660286252447159 -0.03910152940381651;
0.08835588260324095 0.1165080598699651 -0.039008555813330265;
0.08831419794222022 0.11641486614981417 -0.03891218778502019;
0.07376177902859117 0.10394822833846208 -0.03269665688227769;
0.07372107116344209 0.10385982839740802 -0.03259505692154852;
0.07368351060048883 0.10377297305809725 -0.03249294989285947;
0.07364622913434896 0.10368999081313057 -0.03238728844927299;
0.07360970006720247 0.10360783127082533 -0.03227792310783393;
0.05680370570981956 0.10115866945703107 -0.02146434058106377;
0.05676906375450203 0.10108215492628116 -0.021352075436948753;
0.056736188710490354 0.10100483178367703 -0.021237396204120847;
0.0567011948020336 0.10092951637553615 -0.021121532106371934;
0.05666814786517165 0.10085693189940123 -0.021004878311086102;
0.0420923731810672 0.09492980078603513 -0.009680493755208174;
0.0420596575933162 0.09486013616427673 -0.009559253194484718;
0.04202961101166327 0.09478983646575409 -0.009437219858373647;
0.04199789569028146 0.09472227838497276 -0.009314186603688056;
0.041969188425221834 0.09465571700171967 -0.009188458157484392;
0.01719386670041908 0.09296262595556959 0.0089115031054126;
0.0171642684422979 0.09289882405769614 0.009039422189717244;
0.017135252657330843 0.09283621883835598 0.009169202649077841;
0.01710552610610665 0.0927741969279537 0.00929901662916952;
0.01707771370249971 0.09271327760075816 0.00943173754954676;
-0.0016483799505183218 0.07938028069231376 0.024714217382829702;
-0.0016754504265349072 0.07932176849316722 0.0248486613908432;
-0.0017043398581652579 0.07926283876982425 0.02498319887196984;
-0.001732622223154404 0.07920473576019973 0.02511898881854544;
-0.0017608077747973984 0.07914815845852285 0.025255744358647744;
-0.008092509276578796 0.05150236444831255 0.04578840784797782;
-0.008120068587494467 0.051446574492129415 0.04592756157575969;
-0.008148281565883169 0.05139115211486721 0.046067533608893256;
-0.008176404453626634 0.05133685031323035 0.04620825230233717;
-0.00820358892659607 0.051282994067783375 0.04634913408495792;
0.008342964282222377 0.03510896165031955 0.06135284102436636;
0.008314385245044785 0.035057877431210305 0.06149607013527497;
0.008286633745210943 0.03500387246553423 0.061638798026826;
0.008258897124154313 0.03495281419992153 0.06178278436294488;
0.008231407299296863 0.034900022178568836 0.0619271330435043;
0.049338794163242446 0.010218649631108702 0.03518291555481896;
0.04931153496147123 0.010167641433603034 0.03532738870918014;
0.0492836121523927 0.010116746246469603 0.035472649037170186;
0.0492556394568435 0.010066283003036306 0.035617726485773375;
0.049227886385957084 0.010015154199619465 0.03576338237025743;
0.028999848123421643 0.013076326444851995 -0.0020538061417818116;
0.02897144523491084 0.013025776906269888 -0.0019074186593764;
0.028943969210132623 0.01297546972092727 -0.0017610664493855983;
0.028916486144297066 0.012925951671522194 -0.0016148146309075833;
0.028888610914008794 0.012876314501514538 -0.0014679290423102944;
-0.002388102613327097 0.0009451120845601065 -0.00560054558587805;
-0.0024162568174164725 0.0008956034389303988 -0.005453162652982702;
-0.002444446078784889 0.0008470308856443604 -0.0053049735651656636;
-0.002472450721052887 0.0007975886693055877 -0.00515747636345846;
-0.002500372523042182 0.0007481141860366865 -0.005009629534358225;
-0.026190217031866518 -0.01783065662929325 -0.005889671840944686;
-0.02621824113539601 -0.017879866529648538 -0.005741535261451314;
-0.026246514731744483 -0.017928783707094893 -0.005593366094207994;
-0.02627442891538959 -0.017977869804518255 -0.005444920908759916;
-0.026302480351648998 -0.01802662879261315 -0.005296633832816068] %
Mass Used: 446.92274637633045 kg
Launch C3: 60.41024885818919 km²/s²
||V∞_in||: 5.816058313518406 km/s
\end{verbatim}
\chapter{Description of Analyzed EMJS Mission}
\begin{verbatim}
Spacecraft: ingested
dry_mass: 200.0 kg
specific impulse: 3200.0 kg/s
max_thrust: 0.00025 kN
num_thrusters: 1
duty_cycle: 1.0
Launch Mass: 3500.0 kg
Launch Date: 2023-11-08T16:28:05.002
Launch V∞: [-4.335012055084635, 4.544887484580865, 0.9951321890482566] km/s
Phase 1:
Planet: Mars
V∞_in: [-7.121293324402133, 3.1557449977550442, 0.2574124611969375] km/s
V∞_out: [-5.88728969114733, 5.091798086780573, 0.4318349867190985] km/s
time of flight: 7.69225867524608e7 seconds
arrival date: 2026-04-16T23:51:11.002
thrust profile:
[-0.03956033280289971 0.014502274153396886 0.013767483820172557;
-0.041576479761307766 0.010774744221230172 0.015954618100526122;
-0.04353519609600167 0.007026291842675089 0.018015518823847464;
-0.04547258505717467 0.0030483408188381605 0.01993777253806961;
-0.047309011488274606 -0.0012193548498561485 0.021657327331670945;
-0.052415487659225525 -0.06416407139171071 0.01707388662648066;
-0.053795860137490825 -0.06910602876361567 0.018377866968160055;
-0.05478537648848572 -0.07435827994314907 0.01948872251679001;
-0.05534637430302962 -0.07987969781686377 0.020391393740754694;
-0.05542234511951779 -0.08557119998417642 0.02112165287536681;
-0.04603653494469639 -0.11758339178872364 0.010478731803032337;
-0.045131078072944794 -0.12330822437476184 0.010879231121188585;
-0.04374974899764054 -0.12899509823771538 0.011155318621208977;
-0.04192900589988677 -0.1345812372404263 0.011297583377631603;
-0.039688700024628897 -0.1399961637348015 0.011314220390491788;
-0.021847974947327285 -0.16435052102367306 0.002129770511850757;
-0.0188961179478137 -0.16932814279205108 0.0019686779710134782;
-0.015599029971580343 -0.17407912298359424 0.0017313208387575577;
-0.012031227415560878 -0.17858564810418573 0.0013985317033249586;
-0.008207263100371613 -0.18286189049060542 0.0010060475404519795;
0.014387339499824707 -0.19615027292721257 -0.00697183966316377;
0.018642044330809005 -0.19987677851880534 -0.007463937791430979;
0.023072513804048733 -0.20333133902195877 -0.00801459777552152;
0.027678111409082235 -0.2065512162021133 -0.008611471741542965;
0.032416273918375434 -0.20950234109176658 -0.009241460528211365;
0.05727065647767366 -0.2191433536041639 -0.014881165830189167;
0.062210812252887084 -0.22156351523857395 -0.015576788935959698;
0.06721613957517825 -0.22373619052124705 -0.016302796271852785;
0.07231447457452297 -0.2256683324065783 -0.01705477220837316;
0.07744821845226961 -0.22736856704804745 -0.017819357428142422;
0.10200350811113468 -0.2278163660730623 -0.021691173614823873;
0.10718625444262414 -0.22902365778493775 -0.022499165329662302;
0.11238587770647483 -0.23001847034344625 -0.023321075083325548;
0.1175907742151868 -0.23079464658829757 -0.024158451967652046;
0.12281268073016817 -0.2313256017139053 -0.025009765392792066;
0.14734148617688178 -0.23193110054122293 -0.026828068899809883;
0.15246062165647492 -0.2320289354192666 -0.027693691138489004;
0.15756013484944287 -0.23190919000372037 -0.0285724598987323;
0.16262957652479712 -0.23155961671710285 -0.029454306835995363;
0.16762616877319578 -0.2310186539384696 -0.030330493888002703;
0.19021986463225274 -0.2237256987767045 -0.030832740235886377;
0.19505197721608555 -0.22276253734494164 -0.0317116881014192;
0.19984023688892388 -0.22157614923229768 -0.03260448718125773;
0.204553599155851 -0.22018960071693844 -0.033482125661950926;
0.20920235719105212 -0.21858157069918113 -0.0343665518915779;
0.2279686631467231 -0.2074422688851766 -0.03356807904648546;
0.2323853660755647 -0.2054201599551011 -0.03444494413786678;
0.23671311464094724 -0.2032047355747267 -0.03531629778279262;
0.24094332815999528 -0.20077041104419038 -0.0361806846806879;
0.24508066397640577 -0.1981405377685498 -0.03702438323954723;
0.2620323690523707 -0.18676055455915724 -0.035321161962334015;
0.2658847553944062 -0.1837111520291871 -0.03616029682180003;
0.2696275418295141 -0.18045886191354016 -0.03698682357490637;
0.27327302946151294 -0.17699706837176704 -0.03780180073404257;
0.27678271265735493 -0.17334151560199165 -0.03859889067141412;
0.2909191888741266 -0.15618402096479228 -0.03611127095741274;
0.2941076934397531 -0.1520807594030151 -0.036885574493546645;
0.2971711407675296 -0.1477847558967073 -0.03765273809608395;
0.3000921225525933 -0.14327687220290794 -0.03840483203030062;
0.302873185822033 -0.13857943321564622 -0.039116765312786565;
0.3116655641933065 -0.11991931768047741 -0.0361834413012538;
0.31410598858453276 -0.11476986707549652 -0.03686954460237472;
0.3163852071623763 -0.10941364316275648 -0.03753204013869077;
0.31848712811881486 -0.10386237940041423 -0.03816423179059982;
0.3204262692565581 -0.0981154571983449 -0.03878521398590498;
0.3256678044130722 -0.07838444022075244 -0.03511972772107344;
0.32721151962628264 -0.07219320123535682 -0.035684990170265496;
0.3285634628040565 -0.0658097723763517 -0.03621630172719094;
0.3296774910670562 -0.059216512263922466 -0.03672269403520816;
0.3306037421484716 -0.052440905826970474 -0.03719693970630558;
0.33328388923267627 -0.030327534780048324 -0.033168979778165145;
0.33371746054004786 -0.023134888383537524 -0.033576710353787294;
0.33389175751698497 -0.01574903993297518 -0.03393973891492299;
0.33380633367079 -0.008182342781467823 -0.0342573724908797;
0.33342660729643503 -0.0004248833440292039 -0.03453996222672837;
0.3390725685662831 0.02756569570957198 -0.030334702196871285;
0.3380833432257479 0.03567047160764992 -0.030528989791387733;
0.33675065806255133 0.04393525489567044 -0.030663612383741653;
0.33506715162123424 0.05238261972835011 -0.030758858718819428;
0.3330117665436285 0.0609445328094011 -0.03079110300637972;
0.311092400758174 0.09346079037581413 -0.025420523227424406;
0.30810889360138993 0.10225487688815191 -0.025340625186851942;
0.3046520673782745 0.1111657055432318 -0.02519931087775893;
0.3006841235275496 0.12016917200239183 -0.024980281657263303;
0.2961738618627909 0.1292489694856472 -0.024701968974558373;
0.2735165965939293 0.1619979905410212 -0.01869630655188906;
0.2676587760768934 0.1710598613565007 -0.018258442297774177;
0.2611268574754945 0.18010472448692472 -0.017743059114779546;
0.2538542304726611 0.18910841101106657 -0.01712960149634353;
0.24581028537105218 0.19800484453654849 -0.016418319274889952;
0.20666869884086048 0.24449798918762772 -0.010479404541833484;
0.19661838861414238 0.25278629475126474 -0.009583933716756832;
0.185593310022131 0.26078424163575775 -0.008578297521869437;
0.1735491928214268 0.2684089062735019 -0.007463828245551458;
0.1604241654210947 0.2755419168542371 -0.006243673883006362;
0.11764420987192885 0.3026128805297053 -0.0027808955696240526;
0.1020256537979734 0.30819300429344426 -0.0013314690854612414;
0.08524068300499618 0.31284158307591525 0.0002381332205356246;
0.06730138419613374 0.3163648963620088 0.0019230866854307947;
0.04826513140941637 0.3185318511746061 0.003707513869349553] %
Phase 2:
Planet: Jupiter
V∞_in: [-2.4700745323840945, 3.5992843576814684, -0.04897910356619292] km/s
V∞_out: [2.3726396804033665, 3.660071493225041, -0.18342240674607424] km/s
time of flight: 1.0365627669349752e8 seconds
arrival date: 2029-07-29T17:15:47.002
thrust profile:
[-0.05988472231417988 0.5098718574120789 0.003380381450714991;
-0.09985679108378966 0.5099970456619252 0.007680524392304216;
-0.14083421951474379 0.5051230227055744 0.012059671089214113;
-0.1806537704798288 0.49506022146586576 0.01638507392002354;
-0.21707969492739523 0.48021220494730227 0.02057113683022605;
-0.32471394771469786 0.4295719891811384 0.01872201874781426;
-0.347149092726571 0.4026010250742786 0.022369089660714277;
-0.3635390170080211 0.37415292304681513 0.025671314432171383;
-0.3742393760147842 0.3457764845105525 0.02865266479348716;
-0.3800621096770123 0.31860555955757813 0.031325752410159356;
-0.39269541135392216 0.2188962027151091 0.03258569777778156;
-0.39145308216679325 0.1937691388951771 0.03471143696114105;
-0.3880119345885402 0.171349220288765 0.03661393416731571;
-0.3830191997329326 0.15157634467357106 0.03831373113348574;
-0.3769823877981445 0.13425557848329225 0.039836235108387456;
-0.35514383707999975 0.0942343336397406 0.04952161544225744;
-0.3477490228181278 0.08104440223464975 0.050723794597789085;
-0.3401775362653594 0.06964193109114582 0.0517919222219017;
-0.3325828482029597 0.05978311736608686 0.05273028845807096;
-0.32506788814378285 0.05127786041217034 0.05356197088206576;
-0.30127664757064254 0.03503792324857105 0.0678775597218983;
-0.29389828176960936 0.028719164402623547 0.06849638363606865;
-0.2867579056968465 0.02327696635356762 0.06903033183753615;
-0.279878902965117 0.018597268896111088 0.06948001101246397;
-0.2732639685923939 0.014579106100064064 0.06985564581182432;
-0.25143317328935577 0.004822032764249745 0.08096437986103547;
-0.24522909200643966 0.0018873197727133813 0.08119267602988196;
-0.23928898621498146 -0.000608531122887676 0.08136448741577101;
-0.23360561093639462 -0.0027289405875453327 0.0814753944747385;
-0.22816865402914116 -0.004512956524485317 0.08153804920841505;
-0.21234203920450526 -0.011413644583325671 0.0852674329374285;
-0.20731416132016534 -0.012646855647744948 0.08522622899852404;
-0.2025030171885313 -0.01365436394320526 0.08514312487442337;
-0.19789976269436427 -0.014468226957282103 0.08501596072203135;
-0.19348767693675864 -0.015105863083131995 0.08484912080149803;
-0.18004901233725823 -0.02060449520344064 0.08340217879018821;
-0.1759662862657398 -0.020951068437642564 0.08316118843675945;
-0.17205156414511996 -0.021182166364363285 0.08288603181978693;
-0.1682940386234932 -0.021310823181451173 0.08257708638661887;
-0.16468683810346085 -0.021346310895505764 0.08223873732174773;
-0.1543320368498933 -0.025660974285847696 0.07442424976309485;
-0.15097888054040368 -0.025541687729640335 0.07402819847396758;
-0.14775311478422373 -0.02536136401215251 0.0736086638129803;
-0.14464992068219282 -0.02512728735566848 0.07316223230628852;
-0.1416558613450808 -0.024845085523198057 0.07269211361342709;
-0.1415623768665157 -0.028792559619746007 0.06345781418680149;
-0.13878387444913906 -0.028431438277586155 0.06294422712493711;
-0.13610076696164725 -0.028037829197217028 0.06241031547053575;
-0.1335080193450605 -0.027616248159230982 0.061856689730120734;
-0.1310011543407292 -0.027173070081896185 0.061282177796602645;
-0.11649284418400539 -0.029718660679223928 0.05059493418875514;
-0.11412747793329776 -0.029235169928036604 0.04998534694909494;
-0.11183185659474973 -0.028739156807069538 0.049357459365379885;
-0.10960785386698936 -0.028230136583549347 0.04871458263785479;
-0.107449414764391 -0.027712732070757987 0.048054900238084765;
-0.1010067742543605 -0.030035913148180264 0.03985652411759926;
-0.0989658692805771 -0.029504447321812382 0.03916932532994344;
-0.09698208078877331 -0.02896899150495436 0.038466386559246106;
-0.09505063546052801 -0.028431606854815376 0.037751657245212324;
-0.09317143312733227 -0.027892622486673277 0.03702228867717901;
-0.08755719665655483 -0.029654460591863302 0.03165112419363048;
-0.08576743409266635 -0.029114549477146912 0.03089813129635783;
-0.08402030511855238 -0.028578111035422484 0.030133890557482588;
-0.08231359723039965 -0.028044148889432248 0.029358424561623162;
-0.08064580281614322 -0.027512635462536118 0.028571943924095334;
-0.07562099754108047 -0.029225028527746767 0.026135747885363513;
-0.07402205124189658 -0.02870096662135258 0.025329546723042964;
-0.07245538189513678 -0.02818103553603966 0.024513810950172413;
-0.07091914838573711 -0.027667562066487267 0.0236892820980254;
-0.06941194567127179 -0.02715852307168577 0.022855649696120566;
-0.06444725216331891 -0.028129807594017883 0.02241381197641579;
-0.0629887732988159 -0.02763280189951615 0.021563370700178854;
-0.06155686282996444 -0.027142510126807948 0.02070601768968898;
-0.060147421316205596 -0.026656699587050477 0.019841340933161766;
-0.05875974806303113 -0.026179197427987327 0.01896864012786145;
-0.05474981164171225 -0.027817938578884576 0.020689703314815632;
-0.05339834306170722 -0.02735214679579984 0.019804305041766553;
-0.052064855674675614 -0.026893378665906336 0.0189127175609396;
-0.05074918251335782 -0.02644100703367326 0.018015696025811878;
-0.04944799401648106 -0.02599578821354754 0.01711307693411162;
-0.04436520947052908 -0.02715696450606668 0.02003529214607189;
-0.043089584107393296 -0.02672393174200551 0.01912180324645498;
-0.04182530873924276 -0.026296220647751358 0.01820385010281347;
-0.04057366905297342 -0.025876206610750012 0.01728182977712425;
-0.039331241703650065 -0.02545942425212438 0.01635625450605495;
-0.02725788215620618 -0.028444223181240496 0.02297009691214131;
-0.026027590759992635 -0.02804148220354547 0.022036752187993003;
-0.024805147240372426 -0.02764378253724356 0.02110101491862047;
-0.023589347866205486 -0.02725091384718256 0.020161683409456097;
-0.022379917120656196 -0.026863185354985736 0.019219647145726874;
0.0024611476896890623 -0.01530199690864104 0.0012834357703477152;
0.0036707313966874316 -0.014923349116622638 0.0003322506378020735;
0.0048766102964706085 -0.01454799372327185 -0.0006210748132951684;
0.0060798953671353006 -0.014175483649539933 -0.0015758044856345728;
0.007280016024428352 -0.013804886358427955 -0.0025320598985469427;
0.010063656512470718 -0.011858559656874148 -0.0006649670891605682;
0.0112610952310549 -0.01149290667393944 -0.0016238692554735288;
0.012457556187847591 -0.011129815323658804 -0.002582669900111043;
0.013653698635247962 -0.010768062445170068 -0.0035421759772075873;
0.014850558635080485 -0.010407794132715763 -0.004501417594322374] %
Phase 3:
Planet: Saturn
V∞_in: [-1.288181310839508, 3.2263876606130104, -0.15259601195389053] km/s
V∞_out: [0.48748673373831564, 0.4905484443382068, 0.477662291276709] km/s
time of flight: 2.643066332108945e8 seconds
arrival date: 2037-12-13T19:46:20.002
thrust profile:
[0.05787434800100662 0.06365972987059527 -0.004690937847485817;
0.058804962259307765 0.0631535995879651 -0.004740314009454671;
0.05983542454257423 0.06268609928169047 -0.004788047127416414;
0.060975433718026835 0.062268789932902475 -0.004835524503135446;
0.062225980024771796 0.06191324474149255 -0.004880865078012681;
0.06285801042135475 0.054884663480775316 -0.004819160140313061;
0.06433749312618502 0.054701052047457566 -0.004861768137879246;
0.06593351900262197 0.05462711861876099 -0.004903833691377991;
0.06764791684805822 0.05468390798107871 -0.004945075327582575;
0.06947857183941591 0.05489653022456621 -0.004980756541231241;
0.07158131197912566 0.05370903624290616 -0.004989096177551872;
0.07363165632802447 0.05431132268456726 -0.005020718083045292;
0.07577820988565821 0.05515538438056131 -0.005046798453303127;
0.0780073675020361 0.05627588650036708 -0.005067760214972139;
0.08029568923374143 0.05771722861801827 -0.005083195330091614;
0.08641404640859522 0.06540989432376075 -0.005159860038250109;
0.08872876215837687 0.06761198691109115 -0.005157363382001936;
0.09098645045139106 0.07027159619046919 -0.005144483070629835;
0.09311920513687692 0.07343855878826683 -0.005115355981375685;
0.0950435632074984 0.07715907512797704 -0.005070050038753845;
0.0908660761179946 0.08874696789878138 -0.004496676548803941;
0.09203697993375162 0.09364596073645495 -0.004406109321394195;
0.09260828024327085 0.09915333146965871 -0.004286107929658186;
0.09240637528208999 0.10523220896976805 -0.004130286277826924;
0.09123868316489085 0.11179453929787758 -0.003935854513014516;
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-0.020712211472897882 -0.009766079471127388 -0.008768924102388106;
-0.022316082420292004 -0.015432581100616084 -0.002713090916906717;
-0.02127206654031124 -0.01567617264428185 -0.002793411190767065;
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-0.01918789336871752 -0.016160901736099867 -0.002954272690873852;
-0.018146303148503164 -0.016402883837149045 -0.003034785707982439] %
Mass Used: 530.668253715296 kg
Launch C3: 40.43861983890888 km²/s²
||V∞_in||: 3.4773947099827938 km/s
\end{verbatim}
% \input archive/best/long_mission
\end{document}